David Brooks is right on the mark again. We naively think that 'education' is the essential ingredient to change behavior when the technical means exist to prevent AIDS or the consequences of any perverse behavior. Behavioral change can happen when there is a change in 'heart' or basic beliefs. Unless hearts are changed by faith in God, i.e., the spiritual and emotional part of an individual, behaviors are unlikely to change. Otherwise, the $billions poured into technical and educational remedies for AIDS, hunger, poverty, and other tragedies of the human condition will not reverse the situation. Only when the spirit and soul of a man/woman, one at a time, and by the tens of thousands, are changed can these crises be remedied.
"The problem is that while treatment is a technical problem, prevention is not. Prevention is about changing behavior. It is getting into the hearts of people in their vulnerable moments - when they are drinking, when they are in the throes of passion - and influencing them to change the behavior that they have not so far changed under the threat of death."
No comments:
Post a Comment